When Kashimo opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was an unfamiliar ceiling.
"How many times in a day am I supposed to pass out, anyway."
He grumbled and tried to get up, but his body wouldn’t listen.
A dull, throbbing sensation rose from the wound where he’d taken that final [Black Flash].
"Ghk..."
"Don’t move."
He turned his creaking head and found the three of them staring at him with exhausted expressions.
They looked much neater than they had in the fight, but the mental fatigue was still there, so not much time seemed to have passed.
"How long has it been?"
"It’s dawn now. Half a day has passed."
So it was day six. It felt like two or three days had gone by.
It was almost the first time he’d spent such an intense stretch of time in a single day.
'My cursed energy is gone.'
His body was a wreck, and he no longer had the strength to resist.
This was a complete defeat.
Strangely, he didn’t feel frustrated.
"I lost."
"Yeah. You did."
"....That’s all you’ve got?"
At their unexpectedly calm reaction, Kashimo narrowed his eyes.
After a battle this huge, wasn’t it obvious what the victor was supposed to do?
Revel in the joy of victory, or execute the defeated opponent.
But these bastards were different.
They hadn’t even put restraints on him anymore.
And now they were letting the person they’d fought with their lives on the line stay in their hideout.
Even after losing twice, he had no intention of pathetically begging for his life.
"You said you’d make me half-dead."
"Because you kept your promise."
"....?"
He only grew less and less able to understand them.
What promise were they talking about?
"You could have killed Kurusu with your first attack, but you didn’t. I’m not interested in owing a debt."
"...Are you people out of your minds? I only spared that winged bitch on a whim."
"In any case, you kept your promise, so I think we should let you off once as well."
"And you destroyed my beloved shikigami, too?"
At the mention of the Divine Dogs, Megumi’s expression slipped for a moment.
He was still furious that the cherished companion he’d raised had been killed, but he had no intention of letting his emotions run wild.
To take an unconscious opponent, cripple him, and then toss him to the dogs as food. If they’d fought with the intention of killing from the start, maybe that would be different, but he didn’t want to do something so savage.
More than anything, he hated the idea of giving this bastard exactly what he wanted.
"Thinking about the Divine Dogs makes me want to chew you up and spit you out, but things are different from the era you lived in."
"How so?"
"Back then, defeat meant death. Just like in this Culling Game. You came here to end the Culling Game, so if you go along with the entertainment, you’ll look ridiculous."
"What a saintly little do-gooder. In any era, sparing an opponent you fought with your life on the line does nothing for you. What you should be doing right now is either cutting off my limbs or smashing my head in until I’m a complete idiot."
"Back then, you refused to acknowledge your defeat, so I just thought it was a valid threat. But now, no matter what happens to you, you’d probably accept it as the price of defeat. So you need to fulfill our request in a different way."
Torture or death didn’t frighten Kashimo.
From the moment he’d been utterly defeated twice and stripped of his right to live, he was already a dead man.
What was needed to make a dead man die again was
"Use your technique at full power, fight Yoshino, and lose. Despair at the overwhelming gap between you."
To give him hope of living again.
It was a proposal made because they trusted the human known as Kashimo Hajime completely.
"Do I get a choice?"
"We won’t force you. Do whatever you want."
Kashimo could not attack the three of them again.
His pride would not allow him to challenge them after losing twice already.
Even without forcing him or binding him with anything, Kashimo would have no choice but to accept the proposal.
Though defeated, the history of having once stood at the top as the 'strongest' would not disappear.
His fighting spirit, enough to leap across four hundred years, and his nature of trying to keep his word once he’d spoken it whenever possible.
Kashimo’s swollen ego, made even more obsessive by his resurrection, was now strangling his throat.
"...I accept that proposal."
As expected, Kashimo couldn’t refuse.
Maybe he was even rationalizing it as a path he himself had chosen.
Kashimo walked straight into the trap of his own arrogance.
"Good thinking."
"This’ll be the final battle of your life."
"Final?"
Of course, if he lost, Kashimo would die. And he would probably lose for sure.
Even so, Megumi found it a little strange that he was already talking as if death were a foregone conclusion.
When had he said he didn’t want to assume he’d lose to Sukuna, and now he was talking about the end?
"My technique is one-and-done. If I use it, I die for sure."
"So that’s why you didn’t use it."
"Even without it, I could suppress just about anyone. Even if I did lose in a humiliating way."
"I see?"
Suddenly, Nobara, who had been listening from behind, joined the conversation.
Yuji, standing beside her, also wore a mischievous grin.
"A weak little loser who charged in without using his technique and got wrecked."
"Pikapika?"
".....?"
The two of them spat out incomprehensible sounds in a tone full of mockery.
Kashimo’s face filled with confusion.
"What are you doing right now."
"What do you mean? This is the rightful 'prerogative of the victor,' isn’t it?"
"Pika-pii~!"
Since ancient times, the winner of a life-and-death battle has had the 'right' to mock the loser. The method had changed a little in the peaceful modern era, though.
They’d won and even secured his promise, but they still hadn’t gotten it out of their system. They’d nearly died several times, and the beloved Divine Dogs had been brutally destroyed.
With the agreement not to touch each other and the chance to do it while he couldn’t move, Nobara and Yuji began running wild.
"A 400-year-old boomer who’s worse than the dorm’s electric flyswatter ♡ electric loser ♡ or, for short, electric trash ♡"
"Are you mocking me!"
Nobara grinned and hurled a stream of nonsense at him in a tone that begged for a flick to the forehead.
Because he had been incarnated and absorbed modern knowledge, Kashimo understood exactly what all of it meant, which was his misfortune.
Angry, Kashimo tried to resist, but his body, battered to the point of ruin, had no intention of moving.
In front of him, reduced to a helpless wreck, the two of them started improvising their own brainless live-action taunting.
"This is the level of a sorcerer from 400 years ago? Pikachu water rocket, ssshhhk!"
"Yeah, it’s your big brother. I used a one-time technique, couldn’t use a domain or cursed technique reversal, and still snatched the strongest guy from 400 years ago while his house was empty."
"If he fought Sukuna, he’d probably turn into cube steak in one second? Or maybe not."
"Aaaagh!!!"
"Did that sting?"
"It stung."
Kashimo convulsed and thrashed.
Nobara and Yuji cackled and kept flicking his forehead.
Megumi’s expression, watching the whole thing in real time, turned bizarre.
"Fushiguro, you want in too?"
"The impact’s better than I expected."
"No... I’m good. You two have fun."
Leaving the noisy scene behind, Megumi closed the door and stepped out.
If he stayed any longer, he felt like he’d start acting weird too.
Besides that, there was something else he needed to think about.
"Is something wrong, Fushiguro?"
"Ah, Kurusu."
"You don’t look very well."
"It’s nothing. Just the Divine Dogs."
When he told her that the Divine Dogs had been destroyed in the fight with Kashimo, Kurusu’s face fell sadly.
Thinking of that fluffy fur that had guided her and knowing she’d never see it again made her feel down.
"I’m sorry. Really."
"It wasn’t a meaningless death. There’s something he left behind, too."
"Even so, the Divine Dogs..."
"Thanks for worrying about them. But I’m fine. Really."
Kurusu hesitated, then nodded.
Megumi smiled faintly, patted Kurusu’s shoulder, and returned to his room.
Lying on the bed, he recalled the expression she’d just shown and sank into thought.
'She seems to be especially nice to me.'
Megumi wasn’t completely oblivious either.
Anyone could see that Kurusu clearly had feelings for him.
He thought her face looked familiar from somewhere, but he couldn’t remember for the life of him.
"A connection, huh. I guess our hands must have reached each other somewhere along the way."
Since she didn’t seem inclined to say it first, there was no reason for him to pry.
He just had to wait until she found the courage.
More importantly, there was something else he needed to do now.
The shikigami of the Ten Shadows Cursed Law could pass their power on to another shikigami even if they were destroyed.
In the past, he hadn’t had enough power for it to be complete, and recently shikigami had hardly ever been destroyed, so it hadn’t felt very real... but
Now, he felt like he could do it.
-Swish
The residual power left behind by the Divine Dogs’ soul.
The patterns of the twin Divine Dogs, one above and one below, their bodies reversed and joined together, floated wrapped in shadow.
Megumi brought it up onto his palm and stared at it for a long time before quietly murmuring.
"Sorry. You had to suffer with a master like me."
The Divine Dogs - White was destroyed, and the inheritance went to the Divine Dogs - Black.
Then the Divine Dogs - Black was destroyed, and inheritance was passed on once more, and the power kept turning in a cycle.
Only now did he begin to understand that circulation a little, the one that passed from life to life.
With his last lingering attachment sent off in the form of thanks, Megumi raised another remnant of power in his other hand.
The power left behind by Orochi, who had once been destroyed by Sukuna.
Life, the shikigami included in the 'jade' category among the Ten Sacred Treasures.
When he gathered the remnants of Life and the twin Divine Dogs together and merged them, the shadow swollen with size began to writhe.
Calming his mind and stabilizing the unstable mass of power, Megumi held it in his hand and formed a hand sign.
"Nue."
-Kiiiii...
The masked bird that surged up from the shadow let out a weak cry.
It looked drained, as if it still hadn’t recovered from the injuries it took while enduring Kashimo’s attack.
Megumi gently stroked Nue once with a wistful gaze, then breathed the mass of power in his hand into it.
-Shurururuk!
The crouching body of Nue was swallowed by shadow, and before long it formed a smooth sphere.
It was the state just before a new form emerged, with the final stage of 'inheritance' still remaining.
This was a complicated process, so from here on he had to focus.
As he drew the blueprint for the newly born shikigami, Megumi prayed to those who had faded away in his heart.
'Thank you for staying by my side all this time.'
I won’t waste a single thing you left behind.
So help me.
Let me become a master I won’t be ashamed of.
-Crack
As if his earnest prayer had reached them, a fissure appeared on the black sphere.
The hatching that signaled a successful inheritance.
The faint stirring grew stronger and stronger, then finally burst through the shell with a vigorous flap of wings.
-Grrr...
A snake’s tail twisting this way and that.
A pair of wings sprouted from a sleek body covered in thick fur.
At the end of its reverse-jointed hind legs, sharp claws capable of tearing through steel plates sprang out.
Sharp teeth glinted between the protruding beak beneath the masked face.
Nue, the intersection of jade and mirror, now bore the inherited extension technique of the two Divine Dogs in the jade category and Orochi.
Unlike the temporary result that was [Fushiguro's Bottomless Well], this was a proper success that had inherited power in full.
From now on, this thing would be the first foothold in cracking 'that' open.
Megumi, sweating as he looked at the finished result with satisfaction, smiled faintly.
"I’ll be counting on you from here on out."
Nue·Soul -
Combined Beast: Kuga.
At that same time.
Inside a ruined building in Ueno, two men were bickering furiously.
"I’m saying, if you’d followed Okkotsu last time, none of this would’ve happened!"
"How am I supposed to trust a guy who turns his dead lover into a vengeful spirit and drags her around? Besides, I’m sure Master is traveling separately from Kenjaku."
"No, you don’t know anything! Just do me this favor!"
"The one who doesn’t know anything is you, Kusakabe-sensei."
"Damn it, hell! How did I end up tied to this guy..."
The ones sent out to persuade and secure Tsukumo Yuki.
Kusakabe Atsuya and Todo Aoi.
The two of them were now-
"How much longer are we supposed to survive in this goddamn dump eating only cup ramen!"
looking like absolute bums.
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